“Love is not proud or arrogant” (1 Corinthians 13:4)

We had hired a general contractor to renovate our house and were assigned a project manager. Our architect had produced a helpful set of plans and we were excited about the prospect of getting the job done. However, we found that, although the contract called for regular meetings between us and the project manager, to discuss progress, and to make decisions about details, we were rarely consulted. When we told the project manager what bathroom fixtures, lights, floors, brick, windows and doors we wanted he disputed each choice, and instead wanted to substitute his own choices and vendors. As a result the project was delayed and cost us more than we had budgeted. In effect we had to do much of his work for him because he was too arrogant to work with us or for us.

St. Paul uses a word that is translated “arrogant” in the ESV, which he uses half a dozen times in this letter, and only once elsewhere. No other New Testament writer uses it at all. The KJV translates it “not puffed up.” That is literally true, for the word expresses an attitude that is puffed up, inflated with pride, vanity and arrogance. J.B. Phillips paraphrases it: love does not “cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.”

He cautions against “taking pride in one man over against another. For who made you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did not receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”

He says, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” The person who thinks he is something is a windbag, full of airs but of no substance. Whereas the person who loves others builds them up, edifies them, and leaves them for the better.

Jesus warned against this kind of pride in the religious leaders of his day. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” The yeast is the teaching of these religious leaders. Their arrogance and self righteousness permeated everything they said and did. They cherished inflated ideas of their own importance. They were puffed up by knowledge. They saw themselves as superior to others. Jesus said, “they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues.”

As a young boy I used to like to make ginger beer. I would walk down the street to the brewery on the next corner of our block and ask the brewer for some yeast. He would dip my jar in his vat and I would return home to use it in the bottom of my bottles, with the ginger, sugar, water and raisins, to concoct my ginger beer. The yeast would generate the fermentation that would provide the carbonation, the fizz, for my drink. When Antoinette makes bread at home she uses yeast and waits for the dough to rise before she puts it in the oven. The yeast permeates the dough to puff up the bread.

Love is not puffed up by a sense of inflated importance. Yet the yeast of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herod, permeates our self-consciousness. If you were like me, you were raised unconsciously with the belief that, as a Westerner, you were better than other people. Western Europeans, and North Americans were regarded as smarter, more disciplined, more highly educated, more hygienic, more moral, more law-abiding, more trustworthy, than the rest of the world. It didn’t need to be said. It was a given. We were superior to others. This sense of superiority was resented by the rest of the world. It led to the image of the arrogant British, the vain French, the domineering German, and the ugly American. It encouraged racism, religious bigotry, colonialism, and imperialism. The novels of the nineteenth and twentieth century portrayed characters who embodied these attitudes. Westerners professed to be Christians, to follow the teachings of the New Testament, but the yeast of the Pharisees permeated their behavior. It puffed them up, and turned proper national pride into arrogant jingoism. Nowadays there is a serious backlash against all white races by the Majority world who resent any hypocrisy and condescending superiority. Today this disease has permeated into radical Islamic extremists. Terrorists and suicide bombers believe that their fanatical commitment shows that they are superior to all who do not agree with them. Also secular humanists and other academic atheists suffer from the same hubris when they disdainfully dismiss as ignorant those who believe in God.

This is the yeast of the Pharisees. It is a sense of self-righteousness by which we judge others as inferior to ourselves. Almost unconsciously we pass judgment on others. It seems we can’t help it. It is part of our DNA. It is the result of original sin that permeates our human nature, our history and our culture.

It manifests itself when we look at people who have made, what we consider, poor choices, in their lives. They may have married the wrong person, or got addicted to alcohol or drugs, or made bad investments, or trusted questionable people. We judge them as being inferior to us. We may have made, what we consider, sensible, good choices, and that qualifies us for the credit of being worthy of praise. “The Pharisee gave himself credit for the ‘smart choices’ he had made in his life….there was no compassion on the part of the Pharisee, none at all. There was self-congratulation and contempt.”

This sense of moral superiority is one of the reasons why we may not feel compassion for people who are going through a hard time. We feel that, if they had made better choices, like us, and were sensible and responsible, like us, they would not be in the position they find themselves. At least, we rationalize our indifference this way. While we reject the Hindu caste system, which is based on karma, the belief that we are reincarnated into a life form based upon our choices in a former life, we unconsciously embrace it.

What is the answer, the antidote to this yeast of the Pharisees, this puffed up pride, this arrogance which inflates our sense of importance? It is love that is motivated by compassion. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear, children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.”

The Cross of Christ is God, not remaining aloof from us, not regarding us as deserving to stew in our own juice because of our choices, but being moved with compassion, and entering into our suffering and dying in atonement for our sins. Love is full of compassion for others. Jesus was full of compassion for the hurting and the hungry. He was a healer and a helper. He did not blame the 5,000 who did not bring enough food to feed themselves. He had compassion on them, and fed them. He could have thought that they were stupid and incompetent to come out in the countryside without enough provisions, but he still took care of them.

We have been raised on a diet of self-reliance, individual responsibility, and accountability. Those of us fortunate enough to have been blessed with opportunity, education and good health are tempted to believe that we deserve the success and affluence we enjoy, and that the reason others don’t enjoy it is that they haven’t worked hard enough for it. We can easily fall into an attitude of self-congratulation and contempt rather than compassion.

This compassionate love is what has fueled cross-cultural mission. It is what motivated Christian missionaries to take the Gospel to those who did not know the love of God. It is what sent medical and educational missionaries, healers, preachers and teachers, into the most needy parts of the world. They did not regard themselves as superior to those to whom they were sent by a loving God. They were not inflated with a sense of their self-importance. Instead they were like Jesus, who, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” We can be like that too, if we see ourselves as recipients of God’s grace, undeserving of what we have, and equally in need of God’s compassion. We are not superior to others, however much we may want to think ourselves to be. The ground is level before the Cross. It is God’s compassion that saves us. It is his compassion that can overcome our arrogance, so that we may be able to love others.

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How does knowledge ‘puff up’?

2. What is the source of our feelings of superiority over other races/nations?

3. How can we maintain our convictions about Christ being the Way, the Truth, and the Life without being arrogant to other religions?

4. Why is hubris incompatible with love? How does it manifest itself in secularism?

5. “Almost unconsciously we pass judgment on others.” What form does this take for you?

6. Is compassion difficult for you? Why?

7. How does the Cross and the ministry of Jesus show us the meaning of compassion?

8. How does the diet of self-reliance, individual responsibility, and accountability, affect our compassion for others less fortunate than ourselves?

9. How does compassionate love fuel cross-cultural missions? How has love motivated you?

10. How is love the antidote to inflated self-importance?

A former colleague has written an autobiography. I can remember my mentor, John Stott, commenting that he would never write one because it was dangerous to write about yourself. The tendency is to portray yourself in the best light and to avoid anything that would be embarrassing. In this autobiography the writer lists his achievements, drops names of the celebrated people he met, and dazzles us with his importance. There is no mention of his failures, his being forced to leave a prestigious position because of accusations of impropriety, or his struggles in relationships. In other words, it is dishonest. It is an exercise in boasting.

Love recognizes that everything we possess, everything good and worthy of praise that we have done, is a gift of God. Without God we could do nothing. Love is secure in the love of God. Love feels valued by the most significant player in one’s life. The beloved believer has experienced an encounter with God in Christ. We discover that God is, as Charles Wesley put it “Jesus, Lover of my soul.” Christ is the Bridegroom who “loved the church and gave himself up for her” …. “Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.”

As the Bride of Christ we are grateful for his love, for his choosing us in love, for providing for us now and in our future, for making us part of his divine life. Because of this identity, we know who we are, and we rejoice in the privileges of our position. We are his family, his household, with constant access into his hospitable presence.

We enjoy these privileges, not because of our merit, but because of his grace. We cannot boast of our blessings as earned by our own efforts, but as freely given to us. God chose us – foolish, weak, lowly and despised as we are – “so that no one may boast before him…..Everything that we have – right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start – comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, ‘If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.’”

The problem is that when we are insecure and indifferent about being loved and valued by God, when that is not enough for us, and we crave the adulation and affirmation of others, we blow our own trumpet.

The basic sin we suffer from is that we want to be loved for ourselves, we want to feel intrinsically important, we want others to recognize our singular worth. Jesus said that we want to be rewarded by our peers, so we boast about our accomplishments. He cautioned about doing good in public to be noticed by others. He warned about announcing with trumpets our giving to the needy so that we are honored by men. He prohibited advertising our praying and fasting to be seen by men. All this is boasting. It will be seen by our peers, and we will be rewarded by our peers, but we will have no reward in heaven. Good works are to be done in secret, and our Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward us. Living out of the love of our heavenly Father rather than our peers is the way to store up treasure in heaven. Trying to impress others in this life is a losing proposition. It requires constant effort to market ourselves. Life becomes a public relations treadmill. We can never rest on our laurels. If we drop out of the race we will be forgotten quickly. We will disappear from sight. That is why political candidates, who are always running for office, must keep themselves continually in the spotlight. By contrast, as Christian believers we should look for our reward from God in the future. His reward should be enough. It is eternal.

But it isn’t, is it? We want affirmation now. We want to be thanked now. We want to be noticed now. We want to be appreciated now. We want to be honored now. Why? Because we are frightened that we will be forgotten, that our contribution will be taken for granted, that our lives will count for nothing. We fear loneliness, anonymity, being lost in the crowd, being insignificant. When we get together with others we talk about ourselves, we blow our own trumpets, we boast about our families, we drop names, because we feel the need to be loved and admired by our peers.

Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector to illustrate this condition. The Pharisee stood up in the temple and prayed about himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men….I do this and I do that, aren’t I good and worthy of praise?”

He boasted about himself. He was not loving to the tax collector. He looked down on others. He exalted himself. Jesus said, that “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” The person who is blind to his own faults, and is full of himself, will be humbled. Love is humble, not boastful about oneself. Love recognizes that we have much to be humble about. “God, have mercy upon me, a sinner” Eventually the boastful will be humbled. Aging has a way of humbling us.

Love does not boast. Love is humble. None of us should be impressed with ourselves. We have no reason to look down on others. We are all sinners who need the mercy and the love of God. All of us will age and do things over which we have no control, which if we knew ahead of time would silence our boasting.

For twenty years I convened an annual meeting of clergy friends in a Covenant Group. We met for three days each January and shared our lives with one another for support and encouragement. Each person has an hour to tell us what is going on in his life. One of our rules was that we must not boast about our achievements. Instead we must share our challenges, our struggles, and our difficulties. We did not want our group to be competitive, where we would play the game of who had the most successful church, who had the greatest numbers, or the biggest budget. It is the spirit of competition that fosters envy, and boasting in order to feel good about yourself.

This can happen in any group. We feel the need to justify our existence, and engage in frantic activities in order to be seen by others and to be rewarded by their approbation. Preachers and politicians make long speeches and long sermons to be seen by men as being serious contenders for public office. To be long-winded is to be boastful. Love that is humble knows the value of an economy of words and gets to the point fast.

At one point in a debate with opponents of the love and grace of God in Christ, St. Paul listed his religious credentials. He called them “reasons to put confidence in the flesh.” He boasted about them: “If anyone thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more.” After listing them he went on to say: “The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash – along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – [rubbish]. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.”

What is important to you? What other people think of you! Why is the appreciation of your peers so important to you? Why do you want to be recognized? Why do you feel the need for all that? Why do you feel the need to boast? Why are you insecure in the love of God? How can you embrace Christ, and be embraced by him? Let him love you. Receive his love in Christ. You don’t need to earn that love. You can’t earn that love. It is freely given. But you must be humble enough to accept it, to be wooed and won by the Bridegroom.

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Read Ephesians 5:25-27, 1 Corinthians 1:29-31 and James 1:17. Where do all our accomplishments come from? What does an awareness of this do to our need to boast?

2. Why do we crave the adulation and affirmation of others?

3. Read Matthew 6:1-17. What did Jesus say about boasting? Where should we look for appreciation?

4. How does aging humble us?

5. How can we avoid looking down on others?

6. What did Shakespeare mean by “comparisons are odorous” ?

7. Competition is ingrained in our culture. How can we relate to one another so that “all shall win and all shall have prizes.”

8. How can you become aware of boasting in your conversation?

9. Read Philippians 3:7,8. What perspective does this give us on what is important in our lives?

10. How can you receive God’s love? What does it mean to you to be the Bride of Christ?

“Love does not envy.” (1 Corinthians 13:4)

The desire to have what others have, to be what they are, is absurd. When we compare ourselves with others we can feel deprived and angry. We can begin to resent their seeming good fortune. We want their skills, their ease of life, their health, their circumstances, their prospects. Instead of enjoying what they are, and how they have been blessed, we envy them, and that envy poisons our relationships, and destroys our happiness. Shakespeare warns us in Othello:

“O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on.”

Envy rejects the gifts God gives us, and resents our limits. Envy wants it all – or for no one to have anything. Envy is a reaction against differences. Instead of seeing the advantages of others as a challenge to succeed and excel, envy seeks to take away from others what they have. It is the essence of Marxism. It is a leveling down, a compulsory conformism, a denial of distinction. When envy becomes a national or ethnic characteristic, it results in rivalry and violent reaction. It fuels social injustice and conflicts, such as in the Middle East today.

Psalm 73 is the story of a man who fell ill from envy, and who was healed.

“I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.

They are free from the burdens common to man;

they are not plagued by human ills.”

Their mouths lay claim to heaven,

and their tongues take possession of the earth.”

It reminds me of year-end letters from friends, who tell you all the good things they have done in the previous year, and all the blessings in the lives of their children and grandchildren. They never tell you their struggles and sorrows. The impression given is that their lives are constant sunshine, and in comparison with yours, so much better. We can envy these rosy pictures of their lives. We can resent them and get angry with God.

“What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?

Nobody’s tending the store.

The wicked get by with everything;

they have it made, piling up riches.

I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;

what has it gotten me?

A long run of bad luck, that’s what –

a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.”

Envy leads to resentment, anger, and self-pity. The only antidote is to trust in God and his love for you. He has his purposes, and you must trust in what he is doing. God knows what he is doing. There is more to this than meets the eye.

“Until I entered the sanctuary of God.

Then I saw the whole picture:

The slippery road you’ve put them on,

with a final crash in the ditch of delusions.

In the blink of an eye, disaster!

A blind curve in the dark, and nightmare!

We wake up and rub our eyes….Nothing.

There’s nothing to them. And there never was.”

There is so much we cannot know about what is going on in the lives of others. We may envy their apparent success, but do we want their hidden struggles and sorrows too? There is nothing so blinding as envy. The serpent, the devil, our weak sinful nature, can make even Paradise appear an insult. Eve was made to feel discontented with what she had been given. So can we be, until we turn to Jesus for guidance, and seek first his kingdom and his life in all its fullness.

“When I was beleaguered and bitter,

totally consumed by envy,

I was totally ignorant,

a dumb ox in your presence,

but you’ve taken my hand.

You wisely and tenderly lead me,

and then you bless me.

You’re all I want in heaven!

You’re all I want on earth.!”

The only answer to envy is trust in the love of God as seen in Jesus. He did not cling to equality with God but shared himself with us.

“He has equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human. Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.”

The love of God as seen in Christ’s descent from heaven and death on the Cross, eliminates envy. When we go into God’s sanctuary, we find the presence of the loving, sacrificing Christ. Envy is defeated by the love of God in Christ. We encounter a God who is not immune to our needs, not withholding his blessing from us, but is doing everything he can to heal us, and give us his abundant eternal life. He gives, not only himself, but his people in the Body of Christ, to share their gifts with us. We learn to appreciate these gifts, to respond in thanks, to count our blessings, and to focus on what we have rather than on what we don’t have.

God’s love is seen in his sharing with us that which is most precious to him. We bear the image of God when we learn to love in the same way. Instead of love being envious, love shares, and gives generously. Instead of us wanting to be or to have what is not ours, we learn to appreciate who we are and what we can contribute to others. We learn to value what we have been given, and what we can do for others.

A Prayer:

Teach us, Father, in whatever state we are, to be content, that we may know both how to be abased and how to abound; that in prosperity we may bless you, who gives us richly all things to enjoy, and in adversity may not allow our faith in your love to fail. Help us to rejoice in the differences between us, and to appreciate what others can contribute to our lives. Allow us to see what we can share with them, and to do so freely. We thank you for giving us your love through Jesus, so that our envy might be forgiven and healed; through his great Name. Amen.

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Read Mark 7:20-23. What is the origin and source of envy?

2. Why do we envy God’s life?

3. Read 1 Corinthians 12:21-26. Why is the desire to have what others have so ridiculous?

4. Share an example of jealousy as a green-eyed monster?

5. Why is envy the essence of Marxism?

6. How does envy affect politics and international relations?

7. How do you react to year-end letters? Why do friends paint such a rosy picture of their lives and hide their challenges?

8. How can envy blind you?

9. Read Psalm 73. What is God’s antidote to envy?

10. Read Philippians 2:6-8. How is envy defeated?

When King Saul was trying to take the life of David, his son Jonathan pledged to protect his friend, and warn him of what his father was planning to do. In return Jonathan asked David to promise to “show me unfailing kindness like that of the Lord as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, and do not cut off your kindness from my family.” Later, when Saul’s sons, including Jonathan, were slain by the Philistines in a battle on Mount Gilboa, and Saul took his own life, David grieved for their deaths. He was anointed king over Judah and eventually united all the tribes of Israel under his kingship. Twenty years after he made his promise to Jonathan, he asked, “Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?”

“God’s kindness!” This is the quality of kindness that St. Paul talks about as descriptive of love: God is love, love is kind. God demonstrates his loving-kindness to us in what he has done for us in Christ. “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” The Gospel is God’s kindness to us, “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus,” to do something for us that we do not deserve. It is God’s loving kindness that woos and wins our hearts to respond in like manner. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”ⁱ

It was brought to the attention of David that there was a son of Jonathan, who was crippled in both feet, from his nurse dropping him as a baby. David had Mephibosheth recalled from exile to the court and said, “Don’t be afraid, for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belongs to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.” Overnight Mephibosheth became a rich man, and part of the royal court again.

This is a beautiful picture of the kindness of God. Like Mephibosheth, all of us have been crippled by the Fall. We have fallen short of God’s purpose and plan for our lives. We are crippled in our minds, and emotions, and wills. Like the prodigal son, in a distant country, we have experienced spiritual exile, for there is distance between us and the kingdom of heaven. Then God in his kindness comes to us in Christ, and invites us to sit with him at his heavenly banquet in the palace of his presence.

It is this generosity of character and action that God’s Spirit wishes to produce in our lives. Paul tells us that we should “clothe ourselves with kindness.” Dr. Harold Koenig, in his book, Kindness and Joy: Expressing the Gentle Love, writes, “Real kindness is altruistic and generous at its core. It involves a giving of oneself to another in a completely other-centered way. Kindness is honest and up front. Kindness expects nothing in return, and is wholly focused on the other person’s good. The kind person must intend to do good for the other.”

When General Robert E. Lee was president of Washington Academy, which was renamed Washington and Lee University, a new student came into his office and asked for a copy of the school’s rules and regulations. Lee replied that the school had no printed rules. He said, “Our only rule is kindness.”

Abraham Lincoln said, “Kindness is the only service that will stand the storms of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.”

How do we clothe ourselves with kindness? For many of us it is very hard. Our personalities, our temperaments, our experiences of life, make it very hard for us to be kind to others. A person may be a devout Christian and yet find it very difficult to be kind. The competitive world of business, the school of hard knocks, and the lack of kindness in our childhood, seem to cripple us, and make us almost incapable of kindness. This is a real problem which cannot be remedied by moral exhortation alone. It requires deep spiritual conversion.

If kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, it can only be produced by the power of the Holy Spirit, and it is nurtured by being in communion with Jesus. Our hearts and habits have to come under the control of the Spirit every day if we are to be kind. Kindness is desiring to live out the Golden Rule of Jesus: “To do to others what you would have them do to you.” It is to treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves. It is the essence of encouragement.

Clothing ourselves in kindness must be done every day. Just as we require fresh clothes every morning, we have to intentionally put on kindness every day. It requires cultivating the habit of kind interpretations. Our tendency is to judge one another, to be clever in our comments, to the point of sarcasm. Instead, love that is kind gives the other person the benefit of the doubt. It is to opt for charity rather than suspicion, to learn to inwardly praise rather than to criticize. This doesn’t mean being naïve, and lacking discernment. But it forces us to see people in Christ, and to think the best of them. It could transform our attitude to others.

Kind words cost us nothing. They are the stuff of encouragement.

It was but a kindly word,

A word that was lightly spoken;

Yet not in vain

For it stilled the pain

Of a heart that was nearly broken.

It strengthened a faith beset with fears

And groped blindly through the midst of tears,

For light to brighten the coming years,

Although it was lightly spoken.

Frederick Faber has written that “it is harder for a clever man to be kind, especially in his words. He has the temptation to say clever things; and somehow, clever things are hardly ever kind things. There is a drop of acid in them…. A man who lays himself out to amuse is never a safe man to have for a friend… There is also a grace of kind listening… Kind listening is often an act of the most delicate interior mortification, and is a great assistance towards kind speaking.”

Kindness in speaking and listening is an act of humility. It is also more effective than sarcasm. Faber writes, “Satire will not convert men. Hell threatened very kindly is more persuasive than a biting truth about a man’s false position.”

Kindness should never be confused with weakness. The world’s kindness can lead to indulgence which encourages denial of problems, failure to act for the good of others, and excuses bad behavior. It is not kind to allow or overlook bad behavior because of cultural differences or moral relativity. Acceptance of immorality at the expense of God’s commandments is not being kind. Sometimes it requires being willing to be unpopular rather than going along wanting to be accepted. It is kind to be honest with a friend about their lifestyle. It is not kind to allow the influence of non-Christians to corrupt our community. God’s kindness sometimes requires forcing an addict to go through the hell of withdrawal. God’s kindness means saying ‘No’ to a spoiled child, or a spoiled adult. God’s kindness may mean reporting a crime committed by a friend, and making them face the consequences. It may be necessary to be tough in order to be kind. That may be the loving thing to do for the good of the other.

We strengthen ourselves with kindness when we recall God’s kindness coming to us through people in our lives, many of whom, though dead, yet speak through their kindness to us in years past. Our hearts are filled with gratitude as we thank God for them. As David thanked God for his loving kindness shown in Jonathan’s friendship, Mephibosheth thanked God for David’s kindness.

A much quoted saying is attributed to Stephen Grellet. “I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. How does the story of David, Jonathan and Mephibosheth illustrate the nature of loving kindness?

2. Read Titus 3:4. How is God’s kindness expressed?

3. What is your definition of kindness?

4. How can we clothe ourselves with kindness?

5. What circumstances can make people incapable of kindness?

6. How can they be overcome?

7. How can we cultivate the habit of kind interpretation?

8. Why is it hard for a clever man, or a humorous man to be kind?

9. How do you avoid kindness being confused with weakness?

10. How can you maintain kindness in the face of cruelty?

Driving home over the Amelia River bridge after a thunderstorm, the sun caught the clouds and threw a beautiful rainbow that stretched over the estuary where the river met the Atlantic Ocean. It was a spectacular sight that never ceased to thrill me.

Just as white light is composed of a spectrum of colors, love is composed of a variety of virtues. Pass sunlight through a prism and it splits up into a band of colors – a spectrum that looks exactly like a rainbow. The raindrops act as prisms and split up sunlight to produce a rainbow ranging from red to violet. The love of God entering our lives is reflected in various attitudes and behaviors. Some are more natural and congenial to our temperament, and others are not. One person may find it easier to be patient and others may find it exceedingly difficult. St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 describes this spectrum of love. He begins with patience.

Since love is the nature of God, love comes from God. We know what love is from who God is and what he does. Therefore our understanding of patience is to be derived from our understanding of the patience of God.

In 2 Peter 3:5-9 we read that the patience of God is to be seen in creation: “long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.” The more we know about the universe the older it appears to be. “Long ago” literally means billions of years ago. God is taking his time to create the world and to carry out his purposes of creation and salvation. Just as God is taking his time, and waiting for life to develop, we must also. God has a plan which he is following.

In the meantime we must recognize the relativity of time with eternity. “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Our lifetime can be seen to be but a day in the Lord’s economy: “You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning – though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.” What seems an eternity to us – days and years of waiting impatiently – is but a moment in God’s time.

That is why impatience is not a characteristic of the love of God. Impatience is life seen from the human rather than the divine perspective. Impatience is wanting to speed things up, to our human timetable. But if we got our way, in our impatience, we would precipitate the destruction of the world. God is patient because he has a plan to fulfill that includes the salvation of his creation. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God is moving slowly to give everyone the opportunity to turn to him and change their lives. He doesn’t want to lose anyone. He doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed – to perish – so he is patient with each person, giving us enough time to come to him. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, so that whosoever would believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” He is patient for a purpose. His goal is the salvation of everyone who repents.

St. Peter counsels us to “Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation.” By waiting for us, by not being impatient, God gives us an opportunity to change and be saved. His patience is for our salvation. Helmut Thielecke entitled his book on the parables of Jesus, The Waiting Father. It is his interpretation of the parable of the prodigal son. He sees the father waiting patiently for the return of his rebellious son. This is what God is doing: “our Lord’s patience means salvation.”

However God’s patience is not limitless. God will finally draw the line. There will be a day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. Those who are determined to oppose him will be allowed to go their own way. God will give them up to their own desires to reject him^. He lets them have what they want – death, the absence of the Life-giver. They will remain in a far country and never return home to the Father. The portrayal of God’s judgment in the Scriptures is meant to warn us that God’s patience is not to be tested.

If God is like this for our sake, then this is how we will be for others. His love enables us to be patient, for the sake of others. His love enables us to be patient with ourselves, for our own salvation (God has not finished with us yet), and for the salvation of others. But we are not expected to suffer interminably. There is a limit to human patience as well as to the divine.

God has given us enough time to complete his purpose before he comes for us. Our mortal life is all that we need in order to do what he wants us to do. James 5:7-11 instructs us to “Be patient…. until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.”

Our life is like the seed sown. We need to be patient like the farmer, who cannot hasten the growth of his crops. He is totally dependent on the natural moisture, and the earth’s richness, to bring forth his crop. In our lives we must wait upon what the Lord is doing in and around us. We cannot speed up what the Lord has planned. We must learn to live at the rhythm of God’s seasons for our lives. We must be willing to do the work of preparing the soil, sowing the seed, weeding the field of our lives, and watering the plants of our souls. All this takes time in us and in the lives of others. Just as we cannot birth a baby and speed up its growth before its time, we cannot move ahead of ourselves or God’s plans for us. We cannot force others to grow at the rate we prefer. We must wait on the Lord.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is like: “A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain – first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest is come.” God is producing his crop. We cannot speed it up. We must surrender our need to be in control, and recognize that God knows what he is doing, and what his timetable is for it. We are not responsible for all the conditions that are necessary for the growth. Our part in the process is minor. Recognizing this enables us to relax and wait, to be patient.

So much impatience is the result of dissatisfaction with the timetable. We think we know better, how and when a thing should happen. We believe that, if we were in control, all things would be more efficient. We think we are more important than anyone else, and that we should have priority with others. So we criticize family and friends whom we feel are dragging their feet, and are not pulling their weight. We get irritated at service people who take too long to do their jobs. We complain about workers who do not turn up when they say they will. We don’t understand when people don’t return our calls when we think they should. We hate waiting in line. We are used to microwave efficiency, instant internet access, fast cars, news alerts, and text messaging.

Patience is also translated ‘longsuffering.’ It is the willingness to suffer long when we are tempted to cut and run. It is to take the long view. It is the willingness to wait and not have to have it all right now. “When we have the patience to accept ourselves, to accept our future in life, in the face of deep loss or persistent frustration, we are living in love’s power. When we have learned to believe that our lives have meaning, when we have opened our hearts to some feelings of joy, when we have seen some rays of light that make us glad, we are longsuffering.” (Lewis Smedes)

We are to note the example of patience in the face of suffering – take the prophets. They persevered in the face of opposition and calamity. Job persevered despite his troubles. He had to patiently endure much suffering, the loss of all things, temptation to despair, and the betrayal of friends. He could not short-circuit what he had to endure. He could not avoid what was part of his salvation. We cannot pick and choose what part of life we can skip. It is all part of our curriculum. All of life is required and not optional. We cannot dismiss what seems to hinder us, slow us down, or interrupt our plans.

Oswald Chambers wrote: “Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts….Patience is more than endurance. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says – ‘I cannot stand any more.’ God does not heed, He goes on stretching till His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly. Trust yourself in God’s hands. For what have you need of patience just now? Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ by the patience of faith.”

A Prayer:

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time, want us to wait for the right time in which to discover who we are, where we must go, who will be with us, and what we must do.

So thank you for the waiting time.

You keep us looking.

You, the God of all space, want us to look in all the right and wrong places for signs of hope, for people who are hopeless, for visions of a better world which will appear among the disappointments of the world we know.

So thank you for the looking time.

You keep us loving.

You, the God whose name is love, want us to be like you – to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable; to love without jealousy or design or threat; and, most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

So thank you for the loving time.

And in all this, you keep us.

Through hard questions with no easy answers; through failing where we hoped to succeed and making an impact when we felt we were useless; through the patience and the dreams and the love of others; and through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us.

So thank you for the keeping time, and for now, and for ever, Amen.

(Iona Community Worship Book)

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Read 2 Peter 3:5-9. How does the process of creation help us to understand patience?

2. What is problem with impatience? Why are we so prone to it?

3. How does the parable of the Waiting Father teach us patience? Can you apply it to a situation in your family or business?

4. What limits are there to God’s patience?

5. Read James 5:7-11. How does farming help us to be patient?

Signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. (John Trumbull)

Freedom, independence and liberty refer to an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one’s rights and powers. Freedom emphasizes opportunity. Independence implies the ability to stand alone, unsustained by anything else. Liberty is used to refer to past or possible restriction, confinement or subjection. There are different kinds of freedom, independence and liberty. On Independence Day we celebrate our civil liberties in this Republic.

When the majority of the world looks at the United States of America it cannot imagine enjoying the freedom, independence and liberty we are privileged to enjoy. But, as Irish lawyer and politician John Curran said in a speech in Dublin on July 10, 1790, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” Freedom can only be maintained and enjoyed when citizens understand and value its spiritual roots.

St. Paul, in his celebrated letter to the Galatians 5:1 writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

He develops an argument that there are two approaches to life, and you can see these two approaches in every culture, in every society, in every family system: one is characterized by legalism, rules and traditionalism; the other by promise, freedom and grace. One is enslaved to the past, the other is open to the future. One is controlled by guilt, despair, anxiety, and the tyranny of human conformity. The other is released to choose to live for truth, goodness and love.

He describes the two approaches or religions in terms of the wives of Abraham: Hagar, the slave woman, who bore the son Ishmael, and Sarah, the free woman, who bore the son Isaac. They represent two covenants. Hagar stands for Mount Sinai, and Sarah stands for the Jerusalem that is above that is free, “and she is our mother.” (Gal.4:26) Each choice we make, forms our approach to life. The Christian culture, that is the basis of this nation, nurtured the covenant of the Jerusalem that is above, that is free. She is our mother who bears the children of freedom.

During the Cold war days when the communists ruled Hungary, a man in Budapest went to the police station to ask for permission to emigrate to the United States. “Aren’t you happy here?” the police asked. “I have no complaints,” said the man. “Are you dissatisfied with your work?” “I have no complaints.” “Are you discontented with your living conditions?” “I have no complaints.” “Then why do you want to go to America?” “Because there I can have complaints,” explained the man.

Christ came to set us free from guilt, oppression, and despair. He came to give us freedom of conscience, freedom from sin, freedom to choose God’s way of life. He did this on the Cross and by his example.

Jesus embodied freedom in his own life. He is free of traditionalism. He set aside the legalism of the old covenant with all its rules and regulations. Jesus is free from the dominance of convention. He mixed with those whom respectable society thought it right to shun: prostitutes, profiteers, hated financial agents of an alien empire. He shocked people by this freedom.

Jesus is free from the pressure of life’s circumstances. He feels the tragedies of the world around him with intense sensitivity; he shares, and bears the sorrows of others, he is plunged deep into the waters of human calamity. Yet there is in him an inward peace, a serenity, which seems to belong to another world.

Jesus is free from the dominance of the contemporary. He is not one who in rejecting old traditions is ruled by the current enthusiasms of his contemporaries. He is not controlled by family secrets, or by the influence of those around him. He is not a slave to fashion or public opinion. He is not programmed to respond to commercials or to be self-indulgent.

There is an underlying secret to Jesus: he is free from self and free for God. In Jesus we see what it means for humans to be free. When we learn the truth from Jesus about ourselves and God, and follow in his steps, we become free. The freedom Jesus comes to bring liberates us from self-centeredness so that we can give ourselves to love and care and help others. Martin Luther put it this way: “A Christian is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.”

We become most free, not when we are free to do as we like, but when we are free to like to do for others out of love. That is true liberation.

Nobel Prize winning Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) once said, “I have on my table a violin string. It is free. I twist one end of it and it responds. It is free. But it is not free to do what a violin string is supposed to do – to produce music. So I take it, fix it in my violin, and tighten it until it is taut. Only then is it free to be a violin string.”

There are so many people whose lives are at loose ends. They think that their looseness is freedom, but it is aimlessness. They need to be attached to God in Jesus for them to find their true purpose and to become free to be what they were supposed to do – to produce the music God intended for them. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

What does freedom look like to you? Let me give you a definition of freedom by Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey (1904-1988). “My freedom is not my power to do what I choose as and when I choose it. My freedom is rather my ability to choose an end or a goal and to unify my faculties in the consistent pursuit of that end or goal.”

When this nation became independent, it was free to pursue it own destiny. The citizens of the United States were free to make their own choices, to decide through the institutions they created, what kind of people they wanted to become. That is our heritage and our responsibility.

Victor Pentz told the story of the grandmother of a friend of his. When she was young she lived in Serbia. Her father, who was a violent man, told her to take some cattle to market and sell them for him. When she had the money she decided to leave home, and she bought a ticket on a ship to America. When she arrived in New York she was taken to Ellis Island. The immigration officials divided the arrivals into two lines, one for men and one for women. A man came down the line asking for papers. She had none. She had no passport or identification. He marked the sleeve of her coat with a large X in chalk, which meant that she would be placed on the first ship back and be deported. A man in the other line called her over. He brushed off the X, and when they reached the end of the line he said that she was with him. A week later they were married.

That is what Jesus has done for us. He has taken us sinners: unwanted, sometimes abused, and given us a new identity. He has loved us, married us, and given us a new life of freedom. We are free to choose. St. Paul put it this way: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me….I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12,13)

That is when we experience true freedom, and nurture “sweet freedom’s song” in our nation.

“If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:3)

God’s love is sacrificing love. It is love which is revealed in the Cross of Christ. “God demonstrates his own love to us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Charles Wesley wrote:

“Died he for me, who caused his pain?

For me, who him to death pursued?

Amazing love! how can it be

That Thou, my God shouldst die for me.”

Jesus taught us in the parable of the Good Samaritan that love for others meant showing mercy to those in need, by sacrificing our time and money to help them. In his response to the rich young ruler he told him to sell all that he had and give to the poor, and he would have treasure in heaven. He commended Zacchaeus for showing that he was changing his life by giving half of his ill-gotten gains to the poor. He saw a poor widow putting into the temple collection two very small copper coins and said that she had put in more than all the others. “All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

Yet here St. Paul is warning against sacrifice that is loveless. How can sacrifice, which is at the heart of the Gospel be thought loveless and worthless?

Sacrifice is worthless when it is motivated by the desire for selfish gain. Jesus told us that “when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

We don’t give to win brownie points with God, to gain advantage in salvation, to offset our sins by bribing God, or polish our reputations in order to impress others. We give in response to need and in grateful response to God’s mercy to us. We give because we love others and wish to help them. We give because we love God and wish to be his partners in caring for the deserving poor. God “upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry” through his people. We give because the King, who is the Son of Man, is present in his people, and we will be judged by our response to him in his human suffering. “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came and visited me.”

We give out of the love that God has poured into our hearts by his Spirit. We give in response to what God has given us, not because of what we can gain from it. Gratitude and our responsibility for others should be our motivation. We are stewards of all that God has given us. When we give out of gratitude, rather than gain, our gifts become a “fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.”

St. Paul also warns against giving one’s own life without love as gaining nothing. In so doing he condemns the glorification of martyrdom and the deliberate taking of one’s own life. Christians were not to court martyrdom. Muslim suicide bombers are fueled by the belief that martyrdom will gain a victory for God over unbelievers, and reward the martyr with all of heaven’s joys. This is loveless suicide that is contrary to God’s revelation. There is a huge distinction between the willing surrender of one’s life when it is needed (such as in the performance of one’s duty in the defense of one’s country, or community, or family, in ministering to the infectious sick, or in witnessing to one’s faith in time of persecution), and in the deliberate taking of it out of revenge to gain fame. True sacrifice is motivated by love, by mercy, not by anger, and the desire to punish other people.

Dr. Theodore Dalrymple, writing about the British Muslim suicide bombers of 7/7 in 2006, said that

“hatred is the underlying emotion. A man in prison who told me that he wanted to be a suicide bomber was more hate-filled than any man I have ever met. The offspring of a broken marriage between a Muslim man and a female convert, he had followed the trajectory of many young men in his area: sex and drugs and rock and roll, untainted by anything resembling higher culture. Violent and aggressive by nature, intolerant of the slightest frustration to his will and frequently suicidal, he had experienced taunting during his childhood because of his mixed parentage. After a vicious rape for which he went to prison, he converted to a Salafist form of Islam and became convinced that any system of justice that could take the word of a mere woman over his own was irredeemably corrupt.

I noticed one day that his mood had greatly improved; he was communicative and almost jovial, which he had never been before. I asked him what had changed his life for the better. He had made his decision, he said. Everything was resolved. He was not going to kill himself in an isolated way, as he had previously intended. Suicide was a mortal sin, according to the tenets of the Islamic faith. No, when he got out of prison he would not kill himself; he would make himself a martyr, and be rewarded eternally, by making himself into a bomb and taking as many of his enemies with him as he could.

Enemies, I asked; what enemies? How could he know that the people he killed at random would be enemies? They were enemies, he said, because they lived happily in our rotten and unjust society. Therefore, by definition, they were enemies. Surveys indicate that between 6 and 13 percent of British Muslims – that is, between 98,000 and 208,000 people – are sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists and their efforts.”

Suicide was practiced by the Romans in the first century as an honorable way to end o ne’s life. Christian teaching opposed the direct and deliberate taking of one’s own life for any self-regarding motive. We are not the author of our own lives. We are not owners of our bodies. They are entrusted to us by God, to be used in his service and in the service of others. It is not for us to decide for how long they shall be used. Directly and deliberately to destroy one’s own life is therefore a sin against God, our creator and redeemer, a rejection of his love and a denial of his sovereignty. It is an offense against the proper love of one’s own person made in God’s image to share his glory, and an act of despair. It is an offense against humanity in that it deprives one’s family and society of a member prematurely. It is to lose hope in God’s love, and to that extent to reject God. It also places a burden of guilt on relatives and friends, who may see it as a rejection of themselves and of their inadequate attempts to help. That is why it is regarded as loveless.

While such tragically misguided figures continually recur in history they are exceptional compared to those who regularly burn themselves out for a cause at the expense of their loved ones. Clergy and missionaries can see themselves as martyrs to the Gospel or the Church, sacrificing themselves, and their families in the attempt to play God in the lives of others. Other professionals, business entrepreneurs, politicians, and military leaders can do the same. They devote themselves to a worthy cause, or to the bottom line, or to the public, and neglect their relationships, their marriages and their families. Dr. Robert Pierce, founder of World Vision, sacrificed his own health and that of his marriage and children, in his devotion to the needy of the world. His motto was, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” But, according to his daughter, he did not heed the admonition of St. Paul, “If anyone does not provide for his own relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” We can be successful at almost any venture if we are willing to sacrifice ourselves for it, but if it is at the expense of loving those closest to us, we gain nothing.

St. Paul cautions us to examine our motivations when we feel called to sacrifice. Is it out of gratitude to the love of God? Is it going to enable us to love others more? Is it going to show our love for those nearest and dearest to us? Howard Guinness wrote a Christian classic, first published in 1936, entitled, Sacrifice. It influenced generations of Christians to a deep and sacrificial walk with God. He commended the way of the Cross, which is the way of sacrifice, “but with such sacrifice come peace and joy everlasting. For Jesus said, ‘Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it,’ and ‘if a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies…. it bears much fruit.’” Of such sacrifice God is well pleased.

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Read Matthew 6:2-4. How can sacrifice be loveless and worthless?

2. Read Matthew 25:35,36 and Philippians 4:18. What is the proper motivation for sacrifice?

3. How is the willing surrender of one’s life for one’s country, community and family different from suicide bombers?

4. Why was suicide rejected by the early Christians?

5. Why do some Christians sacrifice themselves and their families for their ministry?

6. Read 1 Timothy 4:8. How does this apply to the workaholic?

The poem also hangs on the wall beside my chair! It celebrates perseverance and endurance over the long run of life. As Jesus said, “He who stands firm [endures] to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22 and 24:13) A prayer for courage and strength.

Whatever your opinion of JD Vance, his spiritual memoir COMMUNION, Finding my Way Back to Faith, is to my mind, an honest and humble description of his personal journey. I read several reviews of the book before I decided to read it. They were universally critical and cynical of his motives and his politics. I had read his previous memoir, HILLBILLY ELEGY, and viewed the movie. It was unique, well-written and became a national bestseller. This sequel is a tribute to the priority of family and faith over material success. While some reviewers focus on political and economic issues the book is about a young man’s search for meaning and purpose that he has found in his marriage, his family of origin, his children and his Christian faith. He strives to apply what he knows about Christianity to some of the controversial issues of the day. He does not flinch from confronting the criticisms of the Catholic church and those who would decry the Christian faith. Whatever you may think of his career, his politics, and his future, his emphasis in this memoir is on his struggles, his doubts, his friendships, and his faith, hope and love in his relationship with Jesus Christ. I think it is genuine and inspirational. In an age of secularism, atheism, materialism and cruelty it is a breath of fresh air. I recommend it heartily.

CHINA ALERT

On another note it is of great interest to me me that I have quite a readership of this blog in China and Hong Kong. Twice as many as many as the United States. I am gratified that so many view my posts. I would love to hear from any who would care to comment. May my readers be blessed.

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2)

Prophecy is one of the highest spiritual gifts. St. Paul says that we are to especially desire the gift of prophecy. (14:1) Prophecy is inspired speech, setting forth what God has revealed, even to prediction of things to come. It is the ability to inspire people with the message of God, or to communicate words directly inspired by God. It is here associated with understanding mysteries, or the secret truths, made known in the Gospel, of God’s purposes and acts at the end of time. To “fathom all mysteries and all knowledge” is to have a perfect understanding of what is going to happen to the church in the last days. It is to claim being privy to information not generally known, and the ability to make that knowledge available. Paul is reminding us that “I may know everything there is to know, but if I have no love I am nothing.”

He also says that I may claim to have miracle-working faith – faith that can move mountains – which was a proverbial expression which meant ‘to make what seems impossible possible,’ but if I have not love I am nothing.

There is the temptation for some Christians to claim to know everything, and to claim to be able to do anything, in the name of revelation and faith. But if it is done without regard for the care and concern we need to have for others (what Jesus defines as love for our neighbor as ourselves), if it is not motivated by love, then all this knowledge and faith is worthless.

Much contemporary prophetic teaching (a preoccupation with the end-times), and much faith teaching (the health and wealth Gospel) – is loveless. It is arrogant in its predictions and in its promises. It shows little humility and acceptance of suffering that is the mark of the Gospel of Jesus. It is triumphalist, desiring an earthly victory over evil, rather than incarnational, like Jesus, who was willing to take upon himself the sufferings of the world.

Today there is a profitable market for prophecy and knowledge about the end times. The Left Behind series of novels has sold more than 63 million copies. It purports to describe a possible scenario of prophetic fulfillment. Television evangelist Pat Robertson had a lesson devoted to Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah. It lays out how the action in Lebanon fits into a pattern of prophetic events beginning with the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, its subsequent wars, and the modern political realities and conflicts in the region. In an interview on CNN he proclaimed his belief that God would defend and protect the state of Israel, and that the battle described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 may be being fulfilled.

Basic to this conviction is the belief that the references to Israel in the Bible, can be applied directly to the political state of Israel today. Take Zechariah 12 for instance. Written around 520 B.C., both Haggai and Zechariah were encouraging the people of Israel, who were returning from exile in Babylon, to rebuild the Temple. Zechariah is also extensively quoted in the New Testament (seventy one times) for its Messianic prophecies. One third of these appear in the Gospels and thirty-one are found in the book of Revelation. Of all the Old Testament books, Zechariah is second only to Ezekiel in its influence on the book of Revelation. Its message was meant to strengthen the faith of the Jews as they faced opposition from the surrounding nations, by assuring them that God would protect them. “I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.”

That prophecy was fulfilled during the sixth century when the Temple was rebuilt. There are many preachers who would apply this prophecy to the events of today, and identify the Jerusalem of then to the Jerusalem of today. They would say that Bible-believing Christians should support the state of Israel based on what the Old Testament prophesies. I do not want to be interpreted as being anti-Israel. I support the state of Israel for many good reasons: the right to exist in peace, the right to self-defense, support for democracy and freedom, and opposition to anti-Semitism. But I don’t think that biblical prophecy is a legitimate reason. I believe that references to Israel and Jerusalem in the Old Testament do not apply to the political, secular state of Israel today.

George Eldon Ladd, Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary for many years, summed up 2,000 years of Christian interpretation when he stated that Old Testament prophecies must be interpreted in the light of the New Testament. The New Testament applies Old Testament prophecies to the New Testament church and in so doing identifies the church as spiritual Israel. Abraham is called “the father of all who believe.” If Abraham is the father of a spiritual people, and if all believers are sons of Abraham, his offspring, then it follows that they are Israel, spiritually speaking. This is what leads Paul to say, “For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.” “For we are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus.” Paul applies prophecies to the church which in their Old Testament setting belong to literal Israel. He calls the church the sons, the seed, of Abraham. He calls believers the true circumcision. It is difficult therefore to avoid the conclusion that Paul sees the church as the spiritual Israel.

Many Old Testament passages, which applied in their historical setting to literal Israel, have in the New Testament been applied to the church. “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.”

It is my contention that prophetic interpretation is loveless when it stridently asserts a literal interpretation of the Old Testament, and then fits the New Testament into it. The apostolic writers of the New Testament received from Jesus that the promises of God no longer applied to the land of Israel, but to the kingdom of God that had no geographical boundaries, and was to be open to all people of all nations. The Promised Land was to be seen as the Jerusalem that is above, the Holy City of heaven, not an earthly city in the Middle East. That is the truths our hymns proclaim: Isaac Watts wrote, “We’re marching upward to Zion, The beautiful city of God.” John Newton wrote, “Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God.”

Loveless prophecy feeds a craving for conspiracy theories, and a sense of superiority to the rest of the world. The book of Revelation was written, like the book of Zechariah some six centuries before, to encourage the faith of God’s people, who were experiencing opposition and persecution. The imagery is that of the Old Testament prophets, but it is applied to the disciples of Christ, who were in symbolical exile in the metaphorical realm of Babylon, the idolatrous Roman Empire. Today it can be applied to Christians everywhere who are suffering for Christ. The stoking of alarm that many end-time preachers indulge in to heighten the importance of their message is artificial and inaccurate. They give the impression that current events prophesy a countdown to disaster (an Armageddon) that will bring in the kingdom. I call this loveless because it fosters fear and anxiety in their listeners, and demonizes others. The media’s daily tally of the dead and wounded in the current conflicts give rise to a scenario that implies that events are spiraling out of control. To put this into historical perspective it is sobering to realize that during five months of 1916 in World War I (the Great War to end all wars, to make the world safe for democracy!), the battles over Verdun and the Somme in France resulted in one million dead.

Loveless faith is the message that God will invariably prosper and heal you if you trust in him. It is to take the faith teaching in the Bible and to interpret it literally without qualification. Paul quotes Jesus, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Jesus was using a popular colloquial phrase that referred to tearing up, uprooting, or pulverizing mountains as a hyperbole for removing difficulties. William Barclay comments: “Jesus never meant this to be taken physically and literally….What he meant was: ‘If you have faith enough, all difficulties can be solved, and even the hardest task can be accomplished.’ Faith in God is the instrument which enables men to remove the hills of difficulty which block their path. At no point did Jesus say that faith will cure every person, or prosper every person. The impossible that faith makes happen is that in the midst of suffering, in pain, in poverty, you can find the presence, and the strength, and the hope of God.

Loveless faith condemns the poor and the sick to second class Christianity. It is the religion of the wannabees, and the successful. It encourages self-righteousness, and the false assurance that God is on your side, and that is why you are blessed, and why others are not. It shows no compassion for the multitudes of the needy: the hungry, at-risk children, the disabled, and the dying.

Jesus said, “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me you evildoers!’”

Why were these prophets and miracle-workers deficient? They were out of the will of God for their lives. They had confused their will with God’s will. They wanted to be successful, and when they had become so, they became proud of it. They boasted of their prophecies and their miracles of faith as evidence of their knowledge, their cornering of the mysteries of God. They gloried in their lavish lifestyles, and their fame. They were religious hucksters, peddling spiritual snake oil to the gullible and the desperate, who understandably longed for healing and for prosperity.

Contrast this example with the attitude of Jesus, which we are meant to emulate, who “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness… he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on the cross!”

Love for God, and love for your neighbor, is the willingness to humble yourself, to become like a child, to be willing to suffer, to be concerned for the other person in need, to show them mercy and compassion. It is to “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” It is to face your difficulties with courage and hope, knowing that God has better things in store for you in the future kingdom. It is to face each day as your opportunity to conquer evil in the name of the Lord, and by God’s grace to battle the enemy. God has promised to defend you and to protect you because you are his holy people. He will never leave you or forsake you. “For you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.”

GUIDE FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. What is true biblical prophecy?

2. Why is much contemporary prophetic teaching about the end times loveless?

3. Read Romans 4:11,16 and Galatians 3:7,19. How are references to Israel in the Old Testament interpreted in the New Testament?

4. Read Romans 2:28,29 and Philippians 3:3 Who is spiritual Israel today and where is the Holy City, Jerusalem that is above, and Zion?

5. How should that interpretation of Scripture encourage Christians who are suffering for Christ?

6. How can the ‘faith’ teaching of the health and wealth prosperity Gospel be loveless?

7. Read Matthew 17:20,21. What do you think of Barclay’s interpretation of this saying?

8. Read Matthew 7:22,23. What disqualifies these prophets and miracle workers?

9. How can you believe God for answers to prayers for healing and blessing without falling into the trap of presuming upon God?

10. What is the characteristic of prophecy and faith that is loving?